


Subtle Victory

by catie_writes_things



Category: Cinderella (2015)
Genre: Family, Forgiveness, Gen, Past Abuse, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 12:54:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5334875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catie_writes_things/pseuds/catie_writes_things
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I forgive you," Ella says, and there is lightness in her heart.</p><p>She's going to keep trying until she gets it right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Subtle Victory

Ella looks up at her stepmother, collapsed at the top of the stairs. Lady Tremaine stares at her between the bars of the railing. She looks furious, she looks frightened, and she looks very, very small.

“I forgive you,” Ella says, and there is lightness in her heart.

She turns away and takes Kit’s hand, following him out into the sunshine.

 

* * *

 

The mistress of the palace staff gives her a cold once-over glance.

Ella fingers the worn skirt of her faded blue dress, and thinks of the money her father had set aside for her dowery. That money had been spent, bit by bit, on her stepsisters. A jeweled necklace here, a pearl comb there, a beautiful violin that neither of them could play. The last of it had been used up on new silk gowns for the prince’s ball.

She holds her head high under the woman’s disapproving scrutiny, but in her heart she faces down another foe.

 _I forgive you_ , she thinks.

The woman blinks.

“If m’lady will follow me,” she says evenly, “I will show her to her rooms.”

 

* * *

 

The night before her wedding, Ella has a nightmare.

She dreams that Kit is gone, and her stepmother sits on his throne. Anastasia and Drisella laugh at her, tearing her wedding dress apart until it is nothing but rags. They throw ashes at her, and shove a bucket and mop into her hands. “Look at the queen of the scullery maids,” Anastasia crows, while Drisella shrieks at her to clean up this mess.

From the throne, Lady Tremaine says nothing, but smiles.

Ella wakes, crying, heart racing in her chest. Moonlight spills in from the window, making the tears that fall on her bedspread sparkle like diamonds.

She rises and goes to the window, looking out towards the east where she knows her father’s house is, far away enough to be just out of sight, even with the sweeping vantage point the palace provides. She stays there for a very long time, looking back.

“I forgive you,” she whispers, just as the grey light of dawn makes its first appearance on the horizon.

 

* * *

 

Some years later, Lady Tremaine dies. Unexpectedly, the queen attends her funeral.

Her stepmother is as elegant in death as she ever was in life, but oddly softer. There is no disdain to arch her brow, no simmering resentment behind her closed eyes, no smugness to curl her lip. She looks as if she is at peace.

In her heart, Ella is at peace, too.

She is the first of the mourners to approach the family after the ceremony. Anastasia and Drisella courtesy awkwardly, gazes downcast.

“I am sorry for you loss,” she says sincerely, and they mumble their polite thank yous to the floor. Ella is struck by the memory of her own mother’s funeral, and how she had felt just as miserable as they now look.

She reaches out and takes their hands. Two startled, tear-filled pairs of eyes meet hers at last.

“I forgive you,” she says softly, so that only they can hear, and she finds that for the first time she truly means it.

 


End file.
